Post-match quotes vs. Minnesota
Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016
UW Field House - Madison, Wis. 

Head Coach Kelley Sheffield: 

On areas the team needed to improve:

"I love the mentality that we came in here with. You can tell when your team is ready and we were ready. We passed well, we defended hard. When you're not making strong defensive moves, your ball control is all over the place and things like that so then maybe you see the difference but this group was ready to go, that was not the issue.

"The issue was we couldn't get them out of system, number one, and that was because we weren't putting enough pressure on them from the service line and they passed the ball well. That's why a lot of their attacks were coming off our hands and coming between us and the net or out of bounds. We just weren't moving to get our hands across quick enough, and that's the tempo of their offense. Then I thought quite a few of us, offensively, it seemed like early on in the match we were trying to place balls instead of going up there with some aggression and hitting what is given to us.

"I thought Kelli [Bates] did a great job, her hitting numbers were a little lower because she got blocked there a little bit at the end but I thought she was great, her whole game tonight was really solid. I thought our passers did a really good job. I thought Lauren (Carlini] was making most of the choices that she wanted to make.

"They beat us at the net and part of that was due to our serving, but that wasn't a match that shows the separation of two teams. That was a match that shows the separation of two teams in that particular match, so we'll get back to work."

On the team's focus:

"Not that I saw from the team or in our preparation, I thought we prepared the right way. You can tell when you look in people's eyes whether they're thinking about something else, but the team was locked in.

"I think you move up to No. 1 for the first time and then you get your butt kicked by anybody and you can sit there and think it's the easy thing to say 'Hey we were full of ourselves' or whatever, but that had nothing to do with this particular match. It certainly can happen, but that wasn't what tonight was. No. 1, that would be unfair to Minnesota to say that that was the reason but also because I know my team and we just got outplayed tonight, period."


Setter Lauren Carlini: 

On what she felt about the match: 

"I think that as a team … we did a good job staying connected. We stayed with each other. There was no one going away from the group. There was no one separating, so I thought we stayed together.

"I thought that they just played more efficiently and cleaner than we did. We dug ourselves in five-, six-point holes in the beginning of games and then we would start picking it up towards point 15 and by then, it was too late. I thought we waited too long to play clean in games. I thought Minnesota had a great match. They were efficient and clean. They ran a pretty good offense."

On what the team can take away from the loss:

"I don't think anything was disappointing about this match. I think going forward we need to work on our serving, we need to stay aggressive and figure out how to get people out of system. Pretty often, I thought we've been kind of up and down throughout the season with our serving numbers so being able to be more efficient behind the service line. Then, probably just to make the game plans a little bit quicker and make those adjustments that we need to make in the gist of the game."
 

OH Kelli Bates: 

On if the No. 1 ranking serving as a distraction to the team: 

"I don't think it's a distraction and I don't think that is something we were thinking about going into this game. I think what we were thinking about is Minnesota -- what we need to do to defend and what we need to do to win. Unfortunately, they just outplayed us. Like what Lauren (Carlini) said, they just played cleaner than us, but I wouldn't put being No. 1 as a distraction because we don't much thought into the rankings every week."

On Minnesota's block in the match:

"Our serving, we already had talked about, was not tough enough. They were in system the entire match (and) they are a very hard team to stop when they are in system. They have all weapons from every single position and they run really fast (offense) and that's what makes them so good. That is what we struggled with and we will get better at that. That is something we need to adjust quicker to next time that opportunity comes."

On moving on and preparing for the next opponent: 

"We are used to it. It is what we do day in and day out. Now we have to focus on Michigan. This game is passed. It is just what we are used to. We are going to prepare for Michigan now and when that game is over, we are going to prepare for Nebraska. That's just how we do things and that's just how we are going to learn and get better."